Captain Ed is a father and grandfather living in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, a native Californian who moved to the North Star State because of the weather. He lives with his wife Marcia, also known as the First Mate, their two dogs, and frequently watch their granddaughter Kayla, whom Captain Ed calls The Little Admiral... [read more]

Earlier today, Fox News released a clip from an upcoming interview with Bill Clinton on Fox News Sunday. Chris Wallace taped the interview this week, discussing Clinton's new global initiatives, but also asked him about the controversy arising from the ABC movie, "The Path to 9/11". As Hot Air reported earlier, Clinton's angrily responded to the suggestion that he had done little to take out Osama bin Laden in the years of his presidency by noting that the "right-wingers" (as he called them) hadn't done anything in the eight months prior to 9/11. "I failed, but I tried," he fumed at Wallace.

We can argue for years about how much he tried, and for what reasons. In fact, we have -- for five years -- and it's time to give it a rest.

The rise of Islamofascism didn't occur just on Clinton's watch, and his presidency was not the only one that demonstrated weakness and fecklessness to the jihadists. One can (and should) pick out examples from the three preceding administrations. Jimmy Carter undermined the Shah and allowed Ruhollah Khomeini to seize power in Iran, and then did nothing but demonstrate impotency when Khomeini had our embassy in Teheran seized -- allowing the crisis to drag on for 444 days as Khomeini's followers held 51 Americans hostage. Ronald Reagan retreated from Lebanon after a Hezbollah attack killed hundreds of Marines, and then negotiated with them when they took hostages. George Bush kicked Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait but let him off the hook with the road to Baghdad open because he didn't want to alienate the moderate Arab regimes that had given tacit support to the invasion.

Clinton added to the list, of course. He failed to follow up on the Iraqi ties to the first World Trade Center bombing. He did little after the Khobar Towers attack. The twin bombings of the African embassies, an early hallmark of al-Qaeda's coordination of attacks, resulted in a missile attack on a training camp that barely missed Osama bin Laden. Given intel that a Sudanese aspirin factory had produced chemical weapons, later found questionable, Clinton attacked it with missiles to neutralize the threat. He failed to respond to the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole -- but neither did the Bush administration that replaced him.

Nor can we argue that the Bush administration took much action in the preceding months to guard against the threat from AQ, although they gave it about the same level of attention as the Clinton administration did, and mostly with the same players. Just before 9/11, a new policy on Iraq had been promulgated which recommended stricter control of the sanctions on Saddam Hussein, not military action, and he had already informed everyone that he had no interest in "nation building", making a democratization campaign a remote possibility. Most analysts talked about cyber terrorism as the next big intelligence problem, including Richard Clarke, regardless of what he says now.

For five years, we have rehashed this long and embarrassing history of American cluelessness. It is a bipartisan history, with both Republicans and Democrats arguing at various times that administrations used terrorism as an excuse for their political benefit. All it does is poison the atmosphere and allow hyperpartisans to play gotcha games with political opponents.

The time has come -- it has long since come -- for that history to become just that: history. None of us can pretend that Bill Clinton could ever have declared war on al-Qaeda in the manner Bush did without having a 9/11-type event as a catalyst. Not only would the Left have screamed much as they do now, albeit without the Hugo Chavez-type conspiratorial thinking, Republicans would have never given Clinton the kind of support needed to send American troops into Afghanistan. The political climate had been thoroughly poisoned by the time of the African bombings and Congress would never have put aside its deathmatch with Clinton to unite in a war effort, especially against a band of terrorists most Americans didn't know existed.

All of this is prologue to 9/11, and none of the debate changes the fact that two decades of leadership dropped the ball on the rise of Islamist terrorism. Blaming one without blaming them all has solved nothing and teaches nothing. More to the point, it divides the nation for no purpose, and five years after 9/11, it's time we stopped allowing it.

We have all the investigations and tell-all books we will ever need. We have all formed our opinions. None of us will have them changed at this point. What we need to discuss now is what we do from here, a much more pressing debate that has actual real-world consequences, and we can't have that debate successfully until we stop the useless sniping about pre-9/11 failures.

UPDATE: Ace has other thoughts. I'm not disagreeing with his analysis, but as a nation we need to end this argument if we want to get some consensus on engaging the enemy, and the enemy is not Bill Clinton.

UPDATE II: Some CQ commenters want to convince me of Clinton's knavery, as if I needed convincing. I'm not defending Clinton as much as I'm asking for some perspective. Let me ask this: (1) Will further argument about Clinton's track record on terrorism change any minds? (2) Will further argument about Clinton's track record on terrorism make the nation any safer? The answers, in my opinion, are (1) no, and (2) it's putting the nation even more at risk because we're focused on the past rather than the present. If so, then why are we still having this argument five years after 9/11 when it keeps the political environment polarized, it's not changing any minds, and it has nothing to do with the tough questions about how we keep the nation safe now?

Trackback Pings

» Moving Forward on Counter-Terrorism from Strategic Outlook Institute - Weblog
There is only so much soul searching and retrospective we can engage in. Once the shortcomings in our security have been identified and rectified, we must move forward to identify and counter future threats. Ed Morrissey of Captain’s Quarters ... [Read More]

Tracked on September 23, 2006 4:28 AM

» Saturday Update from GINA COBB
Here are some of the things to know about on this fine Saturday: Osama Bin Laden dead? At this point, it's an unsubstantiated claim. A French paper says Bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan last month. Ace of Spades has details. Palestinians depict th... [Read More]

» Saturday Update from GINA COBB
Here are some of the things to know about on this fine Saturday: Osama Bin Laden dead? At this point, it's an unsubstantiated claim. A French paper says Bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan last month. Ace of Spades has details. Palestinians depict th... [Read More]

Tracked on September 23, 2006 7:46 AM

» Reports of Bin Laden’s Death from Noblesse Oblige
The French Press paper L’est Republicain and the Hindustani Times are reporting of Osama Bin Laden’s death, this coming from leaked security memos that included information from Saudi Arabia intelligence services. France is investigating th... [Read More]

Tracked on September 23, 2006 7:53 AM

» Bill Clinton Wigs Out from Scottish Right
I think that the scrutiny directed at the Clinton Administration resulting from the ABC mini-series "The Path To 9-11" has struck a nerve. The former President must be feeling desperate if he is willing to outwardly admit failure in order to press his... [Read More]

Tracked on September 23, 2006 11:19 AM

» I agree with the Captain from The Anchoress
Ed Morrissey has posted a very wise piece in response to all the gasps and chatter - from both sides - on Bill Clinton’s red-faced rant to Chris Wallace. He writes:
The rise of Islamofascism didn’t occur just on Clinton’s watch, and... [Read More]

» OTA weekend link roundup from Leaning Straight Up
This weekends OTA post is a link round up of some interesting stories and blogs.
Breaking news? Via Gateway Pundit, several news sources are reporting that OBL is dead of Typhoid. Link round up at:
Osama bin Laden Is Dead!
I k... [Read More]

Tracked on September 23, 2006 2:41 PM

» Last Laughs (The Blame Game Edition) from The Bullwinkle Blog
It’s time again for another edition of Last Laughs, the best videos and links on the internet! This week, everyone’s been talking about Hugo Chavez, some of the Democrats who objected to his UN speech calling Bush the devil, and Chris Walla... [Read More]

Tracked on September 24, 2006 2:11 PM

» Laugh Links (The Blame Game Edition) from rightlinx.com
It’s time again for another edition of Laugh Links, the best videos and links on the internet! This week, everyone’s been talking about Hugo Chavez, some of the Democrats who objected to his UN speech calling Bush the devil, and Chris Walla... [Read More]

Tracked on September 24, 2006 2:14 PM

» Clinton Ducks Blame for September 11 in Interview from Jon Swift
Clinton responded angrily when he was asked why he didn't prevent the September 11 attacks. Clinton admitted that he "tried" to get Osama Bin Laden and "failed," and then tried to deflect attention from his failure by pointing fingers at the Bush Adm... [Read More]

» A Hidden Factor Behind Terrorism from A Fresh Opinion
Rational people have asked themselves many times: why would someone strap on a vest of dynamite, walk into a crowded place and then blow themselves up, taking numerous innocent people with them? Is it really a devout religious belief that [Read More]